Inefficient practices waste valuable time and money

It’s a top priority for businesses to ensure their operations run as effectively as possible. For a fleet operation, increasing efficiency relates to ensuring vehicles and equipment receive preventative maintenance on schedule, working as efficiently as possible to deliver the best customer experience, ensuring fuel efficiency, and examining the utilization of vehicles and equipment.

Customer Service is Falling Short

High Fuel Costs

No Insight into Fleet Utilization

When you run a business with several moving parts, it can be a challenge to ensure every vehicle and asset in your fleet receive preventative services on schedule, or at all, if you or your drivers are not being reminded to do so. Implementing efficient processes to schedule and remind your team about upcoming maintenance benefits your business’s productivity, expenses, and safety.

While letting a service slip through the cracks may not seem all that significant, it can cause several issues like unplanned downtime, expensive repairs, and serious safety implications. According to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA), 43% of critical pre-crash events that cause vehicle accidents are attributed to tire failure alone.

What’s the Impact?

Here are a few questions to consider as you research possible solutions to solve this challenge.

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How much downtime does your business experience due to vehicles being out of service for repairs? What is the revenue equivalency?

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How much do you pay yearly for vehicle and equipment repairs? Which repairs are the most common?

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How many accidents did your business experience this year? How many of those incidents were avoidable with proper maintenance?

Customer Experience

Do you know that the news of a bad customer experience reaches more than twice as many ears as the praise for a good service experience? With the rise of customer review websites, it can be a downright struggle for businesses to bounce back from negative experiences recounted by previous customers.

One of the best ways your business can improve customer experience is by concentrating on efficiency. Some areas to focus on are ensuring your team has fast response times to service requests, providing accurate ETAs and time windows of when drivers will arrive to the jobsite, and monitoring that employees are completing jobs as efficiently as possible.

What’s the Impact?

Here are a few questions to consider as you research possible solutions to solve this challenge.

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What is your average response time to service requests? Is that on par with your competition?

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How long should it take to complete a service? How long are your employees spending on the jobsite completing that service?

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How many repeat customers do you have? How many other clients have they referred to you?

Improve Fuel Efficiency

Fuel is a consistent overhead cost that is likely to fluctuate. While there is no controlling the cost of fuel itself, how much we use is certainly within our control.

If you think that your fuel costs are higher than they should be, there are a few areas you can focus on. Ensuring vehicles are being efficiently dispatched to jobsites and monitoring if they are speeding, rapidly accelerating, or making harsh stops can quickly reduce this expense.

An important fact worth noting about fuel is the worst mileage a vehicle can get is 0 miles per gallon, which occurs when a vehicle is idling. Reducing excessive idle time is the fastest way for businesses to increase their fuel economy.

What’s the Impact?

Here are a few questions to consider as you research possible solutions to solve this challenge.

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Is distance taken into consideration when dispatchers select a vehicle to send to a jobsite?

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Do you review historical routes taken by drivers to ensure they are the most efficient?

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What is your policy for idling? How often are acceptable thresholds of idling surpassed?

Fleet Utilization

Do you know which of your vehicles and other mobile assets are used the most, the least, or not at all?

Every vehicle and asset in your fleet represents an investment. Obtaining the most use out of each vehicle and asset ensures the overall use of your fleet is maximized. When vehicles and equipment are not used to their full potential, it hurts your bottom line and ultimately decreases your efficiency.

Proper fleet utilization will ensure that you get the most use out of every vehicle and asset in your fleet during its time in service. Also, monitoring utilization helps you identify if you need to right size your fleet by ultimately reducing fleet size. Sometimes operating with fewer vehicles or mobile assets is more efficient from a fuel, maintenance, and productivity standpoint.

What’s the Impact?

Here are a few questions to consider as you research possible solutions to solve this challenge.

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How frequently are your vehicles and assets cycled? Is that high or low against industry standards?

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How many trips/jobs do your vehicles and assets complete per day/per month? Are some used more frequently than others?

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Are any of your vehicles or assets never used? What fixed and variable costs are connected to them?